how to ...

[beadiebeauty]

hiya ,
i'm definitly thinkin of havin my own vegetable patch , i cud never have one wen i lived in Dublin , so since ive moved down here my mum says i can grown my own patch .
she gave me some advice on growing potatoes , she said that if i grow them in old tyres , thats they will grow to be gorgeous !
is there any other methods?
:)

[ladywithafan]

that sounds like a great idea with the tires!!! I just grow mine in mounds, and I get those stinky potato bugs sometimes :confused: What I do is grow marigolds in every other row, and it is a deterrent to bugs. My boyfriend also puts bowls of beer in the garden to rid of the slugs. I hope this helps you out :) I am not sure of the climate in dublin ;)

[Chixor]

Marigolds and garlic are good for bug detterent.
And it's good to keep something like sunflowers, so the bird's attack that and not your plants so badly.


Start composting. IT doesn't have to be nasty and smelly. Just make sure you take a rake and mix it up so the bacteria can break down the stuff faster. You can take an old garbage can with a broken [or cut off] bottom, and use that. Or they sell plastic things. Wooden boxes are supposed to work also, but... that doesn't always work very well, because they disintegrate along with the other stuff, if you're not uber-careful.

You could start a potatoe plant in an old old jar, by piercing it with enough toothpicks to support it, and let the toothpicks rest on the rim of the jar; fill the jar with water, and the potatoe will become a plant.
Then when it's bigger you could relocate them to the garden.
But you'd have to change the water, and feed it.
That'd be a good use for old jars, and look fresh in a winter window sill.

[redthewitch75]

No way! I had one of those potato plants. Do they grow more potatoes? It was growing huge in my "flower bed", which is really just a mix of relocated perennial wildflowers. I dug the whole thing up, because it was getting out of hand. But no new potatoes.
I also like to grow sweet potato vines. They are so pretty, and I love the colour of them.

[Pedata]

I seem to remember that you have to wait until the potato vines flower before having potatoes.

I've seen them grown in fence, made into a circle. Dirt and straw is added as they grow upwards.

Red: I love sweet potato vines too, they are so pretty :) I also love to eat them. The potato, not the vine, lol. We grew some on the ground once and our kittens would skulk around under the leaves :D

Peace,
Pedata

[freakyfairy]

this stuff is actually really useful for me too... my grandad hel;ped me to grow an awesome crop of runner beans, but i wasn't sure about potatoes...thanks....!